Taken by my mate
Chapter thirty

Evadiene

It turned out that girl movies were all the unrealistic action movies Ellion refused to watch. After the first movie I took my prescribed medications and fell asleep during the second. I hadn’t noticed through the day how much my arms ached until I had nothing else to think about, and forgot one of the medications was a sleeping pill.

I wish I could say that I slept well, but my dreams began with the storm returning, the shield failing, and wolven bodies littering the ground. All of their deaths would be my fault just for being with my mate. I circled through the field of bodies finally coming to replace Daley, Ellion, Spencer and Covyn on the front line, their pale clammy skin frozen in place and covered in their own blood.

As if to mock my pain, the fire in my chest returned, my hands began to radiate that heat, and I felt my strength returning. My mouth whimpered a quiet word of regret as I felt a warm embrace surrounding my strong, emotionally crippled body.

‘I don’t deserve the gift the Goddess gave me.’

I woke up suddenly, gasping loudly in the dark and waking others in the room. My breathing came out pained and laboured, my skin was just as clammy as the corpses I’d seen, and the strong fire in my chest was replaced with a searing hollowness. Before I had comprehended any movement, those I had woken up were gathered around me and Spencer wiped at my cheek.

“Luna, calm down, slow your breaths.” He led me in taking a few breaths, breathing slowly with me and wiping more tears away. “You’re safe, it was just a dream.”

I was shaking my head viciously. “No, I have angered the Moon Goddess,” I choked out, clutching my chest, “how could I be so selfish?” My bites seared and throbbed, worse then when I had tried to leave.

I stood up, heading for the door and nearly tripping over a chair and crashing to the floor in the process. I recovered my steps, hearing Sequoia following behind me as I gripped the knob in my hand.

“Where are you going?” Ellion asked, coming up beside me and leaning on the door. “It’s like five in the morning you know.”

“I need to see Covyn,” I told him, gasping on his name.

The pain in my chest and through the bites seemed to feel worse the longer I was awake. I tried to breathe calmly again, but it continue to grow like my pain receptors were just waking up too. After a few moments of this I couldn’t take it anymore and the pain brought me to my knees.

“Luna,” Spencer gasped, coming to my side to lift me off the floor. “Move aside Ellion, she’s clearly in pain. She needs the Alpha close to get any sort of relief from this.”

Ellion sighed with something like embarrassment or regret. “He’s not here.”

“What?” Spencer returned, adjusting me in his arms. “What do you mean, not here like in the house, or not here like the property?”

He winced as he replied, “the property-,” he checked his phone gps, “-but he’s on his way back, he’ll be home within the hour.”

—-

Spencer

The Luna’s eyes grew impossibly wide. “He’s left the boarder?” She scrambled out of my arms and stood in front of Ellion with so much authority despite her pain that I almost felt sorry for him. “Are you telling me that he left the dome of safety you all live under? Where did he go after midnight without even telling me!? How long has he been gone?”

“He will not be taken for a ride by the mob Evadiene, believe me there. He had something he needed to do, and at an hour away he’s already hit the forest so if he was being followed he’d know. He’s fine,” Ellion was trying to be reassuring but Evadiene was shaking.

Her hand flew to cover her mouth. “They’ll kill him,” she whispered.

Ellion scoffed and rolled his eyes. “They will not, he’s not being followed and they don’t know where you are. You don’t have to worry about any of Sal’s family or people hurting Covyn.”

She growled in return, her eyes turning ferocious. “You think I’m worried about Sal and his family?”

“Luna, if not them, what are you worried about?” I asked, gently touching the back of her arm.

A breath that sounded almost as painful leaving her lungs as it did entering began her whispered reply. Myfamily.”

“Humans will not get the jump on Covyn,” Ellion insisted, but Daley moved beside him and pushed him away from the Luna.

She checked Ellion’s gps and showed it to the Luna. “He was telling the truth, he’s nearly home now. What could your family do? This close to home, he would have an entire pack rushing to his aid in a matter of minutes.”

Evadiene’s face moved like her lips had been stuck together and her eyes started to well with tears. “You don’t understand.”

“Help me understand, why would they wait to kill him when he has help and not while he was out alone in town?” Daley reached for her hand and Evadiene let her take the shaking limb.

“I….” Evadiene’s whole body was shaking, torn between two thoughts, and then tears came streaming down her face. “Any other time I would love to play twenty questions with you, but right now I need my mate.”

She tried to side step them to the door and I blocked Ellion from stopping her.

“I’ll go with her,” I told them, grabbing the large blanket she had from the couch as I followed. “Nothing will happen with me right beside her, and if it makes her feel better to meet him a portion of the way what’s the harm?” I could hear her running down the hall but I could catch her quickly so turned back to Ellion for one last jab. “He shouldn’t have gone, with her marks still like that I don’t care that Navi marked her as well. I’m sure it was only due to the drugs that she slept through it as long as she did. This was a mistake.”

I didn’t wait for his reply, taking off after the Luna and catching her as she stumbled on the stairs, my fast steps startling her.

“Spencer!” She gasped, grabbing my arm.

“Come on, I’ll drive you to the edge of the property and we can wait for him in the warmth of the car.” I offered.

The tears were again filling the corners of her eyes. “If anything happens to him it will be my fault. I should have run at that club and never stopped.”

I rubbed her arm soothingly, leading her to the garage. “I don’t understand what you’re so worried about, but he would have never let you. Any problem you think you could have avoided by running, he would have tracked you down and you’d be in the exact same place you already are.”

Still she whimpered but nodded, picking up her cat and following my lead.

I loaded her into one of the jeeps and we piled down the drive to the edge of our territory. I knew he would be pissed if I took her beyond the security of our land, and one of the wolves on guard had called someone else over to sit with us as well. It didn’t take much more than me telling them the Alpha left without her for them to understand the situation and her feelings.

Ellion was right and he wasn’t far off, making it to us after maybe fifteen minutes of waiting. The Luna jumped out of the car and ran over to him as he got out. He didn’t seem surprised, so Ellion had likely called him and told him what was happening.

He chuckled into her hair as she held him crying. “I’m fine love. It was a completely uneventful drive. Not another car or person since I hit the dirt road.”

She stopped crying and shoved at him. “What possessed you into leaving in the dead of night after a storm like that?!”

He looked at her, confusion clear but returned to his car with something wrapped in a piece of fabric. There was a belt holding the fabric in place and she held out her hands to accept it but I noticed they were shaking. She seemed to know what it was but carefully undid the belt and unwrapped it anyway, revealing a book that, though it looked remarkably preserved must have been incredibly old.

She ran her fingers gently over the cover, tears building again but then she gripped it from both sides and hit him in the chest with it. “What possessed you into doing this without telling me… wait. How did you replace it?” She took a step away from him, looking him up and down, and then touching his hand and dropping it. “I didn’t tell you where it was hidden. How did you replace it?”

He chuckled lightly. “Yea, I didn’t think you would have hidden something so well. I just assumed it would be near your book shelf…”

“How-did-you-replace-it?” She demanded.

The look of confusion returned to his face as he replied. “Your neighbour heard me next door, they came to check it out since you hadn’t been there for a while, and I told them who I was and why I was there. They knew where it was.”

She paled suddenly, taking several steps back toward the jeep. “My neigh-.. neighbour? That’s not possible.” She shook her head, her face looking stark. ”I never told anyone where I hid this.”